Friday Night Panic

For a few years Friday Nights were the worst night of the week for me. I would get in big fights with my partner at the time, my anxiety would be at its most aggressive, and I wouldn’t be able to sleep the next day.

I didn’t realize it was a pattern for a very long time. After that relationship ended, I was re examining my past actions through the lens of GAD. I was trying to see where it had come up and why. I pinpointed Fridays as a repeated point of anxiety.

For most people, Friday is fun. You are at the end of the work week and ready to relax/go nuts and enjoy some time off.

Somewhere along the line, I associated friday with other people. If I wasn’t with others, I thought something was wrong and I was lacking. I don’t know when it started, but I put pressure on myself to make a point of going out even if I didn’t feel like it. I also put pressure on my partner to spend the night with me, even if they felt going out for drinks  – which wasn’t a big deal. At the time, I didn’t understand why I was freaking out about something that didn’t seem to bother anyone else. In my head, it had to be for a reason. I didn’t know it could simply have been that I was experiencing anxiety.

There is nothing I can do about changing the past, so I looked to the present to see if this problem was still happening. At first the problem wasn’t there, I was relieved. Fridays meant no fighting because I was by myself. I could do whatever I wanted.

Then I started seeing someone new, and Fridays quickly became an issue again. But this time – I was taking ownership. I knew that GAD was coming in to play. I didn’t know what the source was, but I had to work on it. I wasn’t going to repeat relationship mistakes and get angry with my new partner for the same reasons. I realized even if I was experiencing anxiety – it came across as jealousy and being possessive. It was flat out wrong.

So – I made myself go home and calm the fuck down on Fridays. I spent time by myself and I started to pinpoint areas of discomfort.

Problem 1 - Not having a consistent home. 

 I had moved a bunch of times in the last couple of years, 4 times in the past few months. I never felt truly at home in my apartment. Even though it was mine, I had never had my own lease before or rented my own place. These were new concepts to me and while thrilling they were also unsettling. I needed to make my home a real home. I had been in flight mode for the last few months – ready to pack up and leave at a moments notice. It hadn’t sunk in that it was okay to settle in.

Solution

I settled the fuck in. I put up pictures, I reorganized shelves, I spent time trying on clothes I forgot I owned and prancing around the apartment. I did what I needed to do to feel more comfortable in this new place. I was happy to have it but I was stopping myself from appreciating it. I undid whatever mental block was happening and found ways to enjoy my new space.

Problem 2 – Reliving Past Fights

I still remembered fights. I still remembered old arguments that had long since silenced. No one was arguing out loud anymore but the effects of those fights were still riddling my head with bad thoughts. The worst part was, I realized that I was equally responsible for many of those arguments. I wasn’t always the one who had been done wrong – a lot of it was also me making arguments out of things that it wasn’t fair to be upset about.  

Solution 

 I am still working on this one. Forgiving myself. I didn’t know better at the time, I know better now, and the only actions I can effect are the ones I make now. I try very hard to make decisions based on a clear head and not to listen to my anxiety. I spend a lot of time really thinking something through - trying to put a new spin on it and seeing if maybe it really is no big deal. So far, this has helped me. I have slipped up a few times for sure – but I am learning. A lot of change has come from dealing with my anger by myself, dealing with my anxiety on my own, learning to recognize that I am working through it by myself. I use the tools I have been armed with in my counselling sessions and I try this new approach – I say to myself – “work on it by yourself – see if you can diminish it and squash it out by yourself - if you really can’t then it may be a bigger problem – only take it to someone else if you can’t figure it out on your own”

Most of the time the problem never reaches somebody else. Sometimes it can, usually because it needs to. I’ve managed to weed out 80% of those arguments that would have otherwise started. I am slowly getting better at eliminating them.

Problem 3 – I wasn’t spending quality time alone.

Solution 

I thought about the things I loved to do and one of them was drawing. I looked through the old sketchbooks that I would fill up in a matter of no time and realized I had completely dropped this hobby I really enjoyed. Each of these books was a combination of drawings, writing, and items of interest. I made an attempt to start a few, and after a couple bad starts and stops. I realized that these truly reflect my frame of mind. When I was having a very rough time the books were erratic and often have a lot of blank pages because I would drop one right away and start a fresh one. I wasn’t proud of these books like I used to be. I would go through them and rip out pages. I think this was all part of the process. I had to admit to things I didn’t want to admit to then purge them. It wasn’t easy, and I hated that I had completely lost this creative flow I used to have.  

I also realized that when I spent productive time alone it would be with these books. I would fill them with ideas and goals and tokens of good memories. For a huge chunk of time there was no book because I was very unhappy. Now I had to get back to creating one. 

I spent a lot of time drawing and picking up old interests and it resulted in a very nice sketchbook. I was very proud of it and I feel more myself now than I have in a very long time. The more time passes, the better I feel. I have this hobby back and it feels right.

I’m learning not to associate certain days and times with certain things. I try to tell myself the only thing that matters is the present, that I make the most of this moment. I am also working on forgiving myself the past. I try to reiterate to myself that I can think about the future but it doesn’t have to be doom and gloom. And that most of all – I don’t know what to expect. I have been wrong about my negative thoughts so far.

I just have to continue to have faith in my own ability to deal with these matters. And I think I need to keep telling myself it will get better – it only has been.

Batcycle!

Todays weird.

So I woke up this morning and had one of the worst panic attacks. Actually, I call them all the worst because they all suck balls and feel terrible. I have this freak out and then I calm myself down and felt fucking awesome when it was over.

Then I got on the subway train and was listening to music thinking about how upset I am all the time. And how it’s futile to go over this shit and how all my hard work is going to nothing because there is no change.

Then I got off the subway and I was listening to a song and heard this really weird noise. It was like an angry lion was trying to throw up and roar super loud at the same time. I heard it over my headphones. I look up and there’s three fucking guys in the subway all playing the fucking accordion and sounding so fucking terrible –  everyone was so business going about their morning going by them acting like the three fucking guys playing three fucking accordians terribly was totally the norm. And then I realized something. This was fucking hilarious. And if I had been caught up in my own thoughts I would have completely missed it.

Then I realized something else. I spend majority of my time in my own head and miss a lot of stuff. So I’m going to stop doing that.

I met one of my friends the other day and she gave me a tarot card lesson. Then that night I had a dream that was like an action adventure flick. In the dream, this totally hopeless situation was occurring and this kid that I was trying to protect was getting kidnapped. And I was off in the distance and all I had to try to catch up to the kidnappers was a motorcycle. I saw the motorcycle, and I distinctly remember in my dream having a moment of “I don’t know how to ride a motorcycle” but then in the dream I said fuck it and hopped on – I expected it to crash but it didn’t and I rode the motorcycle on this crazy rooftop/stair railing chase – apparently the motorcycle could fly too – maybe it was batmans motorcycle? the batcycle! – anyways it was pretty much the best thing I ever dreamt and it was such a wild adventure. I totally caught up to the bad guys, beat them into confessing where the kid was, and saved his life. 

I was totally bad ass in the dream. I was doing something super cool. I wasn’t afraid. It was exhilarating.  

I have started drawing again big time, I am actually getting my skill back and it was way faster than I thought it would be. I still don’t know how to shade properly but I never did so whatever.

Basically, I am back to achieving things. I am actually in a good mood. For the first time. In a fucking year. I mean I’ve been in good moods – but usually they have some underlying crap and I’m never actually in that good mood. It’s like a good mood despite being seriously upset deep down. A good upset mood. I think that over the last little while something is changing.

Especially because this morning I came to work and someone who is very important to me told me they were worried about me. That I was drinking too much. I thought about this differently than usual. Normally I would become very angry with myself or freak out or whatever dramatic bullshit. But today I thought, there is some merit to this. She is right, I have been drinking a lot. despite all the things I have been improving, drinking has gotten a bit out of hand. So – my solution is not to drink so much.

It was that fucking easy. I didn’t flip out, I didn’t cry and I didn’t think everybody hates me. Okay I thought that last one but only briefly.

I didn’t go extreme and think – I’m a fucking alcoholic – But I also didn’t ignore it and say hey nothings wrong what the fuck. I know why I like to drink, it’s because I don’t feel any of the effects of my anxiety – a few drinks in I don’t feel it and I don’t have to work to not feel it. I don’t have to feel awkward, I just feel like everything is okay. I rarely feel like everything is okay.

It’s not a solution though. Because I end up drinking too much and being a bitch. Also, the anxiety usually surfaces at some point, so I end up having anxiety and being drunk. Not a good combination really.

So. it’s an issue. I will cut back. It won’t be easy but I will take it one step at a time - Like I have with any other problem I have dealt with. I think I am gaining more confidence in my ability to handle myself.

And I feel really really good about that.

Something is changing for sure. Things are improving. I think all this work I have been doing is paying off. But I also don’t want to continue to get caught up in my head. It’s time to breathe – a lot – take some time and start allowing myself to enjoy things. I want to enjoy being a young woman, I want to enjoy having friendships, I want to enjoy my relationship, I want to enjoy and appreciate all these things. I think I am ready. I feel really good right now. And I want to have more good dreams because that fucking batcycle was so fucking cool.

So yes todays weird – because I feel good. And while that statement is kind of sad, at least today I can enjoy the weirdness. And maybe one day – if I’m lucky - a weird day like today will be the norm.

Figuring It Out

What was it like before I knew I had a disorder?

For majority of my life I did not know I had GAD. I went about my life, made my decisions, and lived day to day believing everything I felt was how the average person felt/feels.

After a major life change, I had moved back to Toronto. For the first while things were fine, I was having lots of fun. I had a new look – I was losing a lot of weight I had gained – I was going out with my friends a lot more than I used to and spending time revisiting my favorite things – listening to music, writing, drawing. I was also very – VERY – excited to start dating. I felt like a bratty girl who had been locked up for a long time that was finally unleashed on the world. Look out everybody – run for cover – she’s baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaccccccccccccccccccccccccccckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk!!!

All the excitement was new and wonderful, but there was something underlying it. I was having really REALLY bizarre thoughts about my past life. For some reason, I had it in my head that I was pregnant.

S0 let me explain. Logically there was no way I was pregnant. I had a yearly exam shortly before the last relationship ending. A few months had gone by and I had regular periods. I hadn’t had sex for a long time, it just was not possible. But no matter what I told myself I had this all gripping fear that I was pregnant.

I was coming up with solutions to this problem I believed I had. I was terrified of any connection to the past, I was terrified of any change to the new life I was currently enjoying, I was terrified that I couldn’t stop obsessing and was wondering if I was actually just losing it, if I hadn’t recovered from my last relationship ending. I did not know what was happening and I was absolutely scared.

I had bought home pregnancy tests, all were negative. I had a test done at the local Clinic, negative. With every test I thought this feeling of dread would lift but nothing worked. Nothing was reassuring me, I still felt like something was happening that I had no control over.

I called the clinic again, and explained that I was just not able to let it go. I needed a blood test to confirm I was not pregnant. I explained the past relationship ending. I was very lucky that the nurse I spoke to was compassionate and told me yes, they would make an exception and give me a blood test if it meant I was reassured. I came in, had the test done, and waited for the results to show up. I was CERTAIN it would come back positive. I was CERTAIN I would have to make a very difficult and horrible decision. Even if it came back negative I was CERTAIN the lab had mixed up my sample with someone elses.

All of these thoughts were actual thoughts that were constantly cycling through my head. It went something like this

You’re pregnant – NO I’m not, I can’t be I had my period – It doesn’t matter your pregnant Everything is going to change, you will have to call him and talk to him and explain to him because there’s nobody else you would be pregnant from – I’m not pregnant it’s been months there’s no chance I can be, I’ve had all the tests done – what if the tests were wrong? You’re pregnant, what are you going to do? you have to deal with it don’t tell anyone they wont believe you you’re pregnant

I was arguing with myself. My logical side was saying, it just can’t be and here are the reasons why – but something was fighting this reasoning and scaring me big time. This was happening all day, from the moment I woke up until I tried to go back to sleep at night. This is how scared I was all the time. I would function, I had a job and I would go to work, I would have regular conversations with people – I would laugh make jokes – and the entire time I believed that I was pregnant and I was completely fucked and would have to make some really difficult decisions very soon – I was struggling with this and I just did not talk about it.

I called the clinic again and they told me that my blood test was negative. I felt slightly relived and I tried to ignore the what if thoughts that were now bubbling up – what if they mixed up the tests – what if they are lying and did not process the test – what if they are just humoring me – this was cut off when I realized the nurse was still talking on the phone. She said

“I understand you are dealing with something difficult, maybe you can use one of our other resources here. We offer counseling and I think it could benefit you.”

I was polite and said thank you but dismissed the idea right away. I had been to counseling before, it had not helped at all. I didn’t see the point in trying to see a counselor now that I knew for the most part that the crisis had been averted.

It took two more obsessive attacks like this happening over the next couple of months for me to realize that I needed help. I had anxiety my entire life, but for whatever reason now – at this new stage and new beginning – it was not going to go ignored. I made my first counseling appointment because I was willing to try anything at this point.

It was grueling. I cried in almost every appointment. I talked about parts of my life I never wanted to, and usually needed the rest of the day to recover from the emotional exhaustion of an appointment. The counselor I started with was amazing and saw me through much of the process. She saw something was up and called in a psychiatrist who diagnosed me based on two months of meetings. I started researching GAD and found that my symptoms matched up EXACTLY with what was described. I was, in a way, relieved, because at least this meant I could do something about it, I knew what to look for and I knew what I was dealing with. I wasn’t actually losing my mind, I was suffering from a disorder that had become very severe in the face of all these changes in my life.

A major change I made, and I think this is because of the counselor that was helping me worked so well, was that I was completely open. I discussed the extent to which I worried about things, I exposed the way I was thinking about things and my thought process, I laid it all out on the table. This was scary because I was fully exposing my inner most ideas/perceptions/thoughts – it made me VERY VULNERABLE. It also made the result I needed, I received a proper diagnosis because I was honest. It was very difficult and it only worked because I was in trustworthy hands.

The best part was realizing I DID NOT have to feel this way. It has taken/is taking a lot of reconstruction on a daily basis to let this idea sink in, but I am working on it.

When I reflect back on how things were before I was diagnosed and started reading about my disorder, I remember how purely panicked I would become. I remember how scared I was. I remember how embarrassed I was that I was so emotional on an ongoing basis and seemed to have no control over it. One comfort that exists now is that I know what is happening. I can take ownership of it and I have some power over it.

I was very lucky in my situation that I could find someone who helped me right off the bat. If you are also looking, One clinic I recommend if you are living in Toronto in the Yonge and Eglinton Area is the Anne Johnston Health Station. My experience has only been with sex positive counselors who are there to really help from an unbiased place. If that’s not where you live, they can probably recommend someone if you give them a call. They can also provide you with other forms of therapy – group therapy is an example – if you don’t want a one on one.

-tigerslut

Day 3 of 21

Doing some Defeating

Posting to this blog is helping. A LOT.

Yesterday throughout the day I was having a BAD anxiety attack. It was building up all day and I was holding it at bay by writing, focusing on my work, and reassuring myself it would be over soon. By about hour 6, I realized my anxiety was just acting up this particular day.

One of the ways I try to explain how anxiety feels to people is by comparing how a ‘normal’ person would feel doing an activity and how I may feel doing the same one. For example, let’s say you go home and take a sweet bubble bath. You have warm water filling up the tub and bubbles are popping up all over the place to hang out with you. Many people would find a bubble bath to be very relaxing. I will feel better, but never completely relaxed. The nature of my anxiety is that it is always always there/always present/always lurking.

It helps me to keep a picture of a thermometer in my head of where my anxiety level is at any given time. During a bubble bath it is probably at its lowest BUT IT IS STILL THERE. I can still kind of feel it. There are specific times I never have anxiety – but those times are rare. Even a bubble bath is not one of them. However, I have grown accustomed to feeling anxiety at some level - whether it be low or super intense –  that the level I feel during a bubble bath ain’t no thang.

Yesterday was a challenging day. My anxiety thermometer was bobbing up and down up and down up and down then finally way way up. 

How Do I know it’s Anxiety?

This is one of the most difficult things to learn. I realized that the intense ‘afraidness’ I was feeling majority of the time was not normal. This fear was guiding my thought process and in turn fueling negative emotions and taking them to a hyper level of feeling. I was a scatterball mess. I would overreact to situations and not realize I was blowing things out of proportion. My brain was always at odds with how I felt, constantly questioning: IF nothing is wrong then WHY do I feel this way?

My counsellor taught me something that has been an immense help. She explained that I can PHYSICALLY feel my anxiety. My body will do certain things and they will be the same things each time if there is an anxiety act up.

What are they?

1 – My heart speeds up. It beats really fast. If I am lying down and doing nothing my heart can still be thumping away like crazy. My favourite thing to do is run because it takes that fast heartbeat and really uses it. I always feel better after a run because I can really tell the difference as my heart slows down.

2 – A feeling of dread  or of sinking in my chest. This feeling has got to be the scariest part. It’s the DANGER DANGER signal that my body is shooting out to every part of me. My body is physically reacting to the anxiety by making me feel like SOMETHING IS WRONG right in my chest. This one is the hardest to shake. When it’s gone I always feel relieved because I know that whatever intense anxiety was occurring has fully stopped.

3 – Breathing – I did not realize this one was happening until I really started to pay attention. I have to take deeper and faster breaths because I feel I’m not getting enough oxygen in my body. I feel light headed, I feel like the air isn’t absorbing. I am currently trying to mediate this with yoga, but it is a slow slow process. A tip I was given by my counsellor was to just suck in a deep breath, count to two then slowly release that breath. Repeating this tends to help. And it’s something you can do without having to remove yourself from any given situation.

The thing that takes a lot – and I mean the most effort – is reprogramming myself to realize that the anxiety I am feeling is baseless. It is not caused by anything. It is just happening. As people we constantly look for meaning, it is in our nature. The hardest thing to tell myself - to really believe and put faith in – is that the anxiety that feels so strongly in my chest – that remains so insistently throughout my life – is just a process my body is more vulnerable to. It is just something that is happening, that I am feeling, that has no cause.

This means that I cannot trust my body OR my mind when it is having an anxiety attack. I have learned/am learning to dismiss whatever I feel or think or expect during an anxiety attack. I always do a mental check if I feel something wrong – Am I having any of the physical anxiety symptoms? If I am then whatever is happening at the time, whatever the anxiety is making me focus on – gets dismissed as nothing. It’s nothing because I am imagining it to be more than it is because my body is fueling that reaction in my head.

Pretty weird right? Imagine not being able to trust how you feel OR how you think. It is/was one of the most difficult things to learn when you have this disorder. And I think over time I will learn how to sort what I am actually feeling and what anxiety is making me feel. I’m not there yet, so I have to make it very cut and dry as I learn more about how this disorder works in me.

What do you do when you have an anxiety attack?

There are a bunch of coping mechanisms that we create to use when we do not feel good. I took this idea and learned to apply it to my Anxiety. If I wanted to function as a fairly normal person throughout my day and I wanted to enjoy the good things in my life, I had to take treating this disorder into my own hands. There were a few different tools I have learned about and picked up on to help me deal with the disorder on a daily basis.

Yesterdays anxiety attack had built up for most of the day. I was focusing on something and obsessing about it. I knew I would do this and had written an email to myself in an effort to ward it off. I wrote that the anxiety could be there and could be really bad and I would deal with it if it did become too intense.

It reached a point where I could no longer distract myself or use the coping mechanisms I usually do – refocusing on what I am doing, breathing, drinking a glass of water. None of my usual ways to break out were working and the anxiety was getting worse. I had been researching a little bit about it during the day and realized that I was still fighting the attack. I wasn’t letting myself just feel it so I could get past it. I decided to just let go and see what would happen.

I ended up doing something a little bit stupid, I just started crying. For about 2 minutes. I just sat there and cried, told myself I wasn’t upset about anything in particular, I just didn’t feel good and reassured myself it would pass.

I came down from the crying and the attack started to calm down to the point where I could at least think. I felt myself starting to become angry about the situation I was obsessing about and wanting to place blame. I did a mental check for anxiety symptoms and sure enough they were all present and roaring at full velocity. Fast heart beat, breathing didn’t feel right, and overwhelming sinking feeling of dread. I told my self to “stop right now. You are not going to let your mind run away with you. You are having an anxiety attack. Let it ride out. Nothing is wrong.”

After another 5 minutes I was actually okay.I felt relieved. The sense of dread was gone and best of all - I had handled it myself. I hadn’t called anyone, I hadn’t told anyone it was happening, I just let. it. happen.

I think because I have been writing here and researching the condition and understanding how it manifests, I am able to realize how to handle it better when an intense anxiety level does happen. I think that my counsellors have helped tremendously by providing me with the tools and mechanisms I needed to fight this disorder.

But up until yesterday, I did not know if these tools were even working. Yesterday I had my first anxiety attack that I handled by myself. This is after about 6 months of learning to recognize and then stamp out an attack. When I first was figuring this whole thing out, I felt angry and frustrated. I knew, on a personal level, that I would not go on medication. I knew that if I was going to handle these attacks myself without the aid of medication it would be more difficult than it needed to be. I have it firmly in my mind that I cannot take medicine, that I do not want to be medicated for the rest of my life. This is a fear I have. But in order to reassure myself and account for another course of treatment if I need it,  I gave myself a time limit. One year. One year of really working on the anxiety, learning everything I can about it. One year on my own to see if I could handle this disorder myself. Yesterday was the first day that I took a step in the right direction that makes me believe I made the right decision for myself. Yesterday I actually realized I have some hope that I can do this by myself. I am really happy about this, and I think I will be better prepared for next time, knowing that I could handle this time.

-tiger slut

Day 2 of 21.